Thought For The Day: Steven Pinker

Perhaps the most extraordinary popular delusion about violence of the past quarter-century is that it is caused by low self-esteem. Self-esteem can be measured, and surveys show that it is the psychopaths, street toughs, bullies, abusive husbands, serial rapists, and hate-crime perpetrators who are off the scale. Psychopaths and other violent people are narcissistic: They think well of themselves not in proportion to their accomplishments but out of a congenital sense of entitlement. When reality intrudes, as it inevitably will, they treat the bad news as a personal affront, and its bearer, who is endangering their fragile reputation, as a malicious slanderer. 

Steven Pinker, The Better Angels Of Our Nature.
Do you work with or know a sociopath - take this simple test.
Can you think of any journalists or activists who tick too many of those boxes?
Basically we live in a cuntocracy, where the worst of people thrive.
I'm currently trying to work this up into an all-encompassing final theory of everything.

Update: By coincidence, the Sunday Telegraph writes about the office psychopath - with a handy checklist. After the great Oliver James' forthcoming book, Office Politics.